Searching for Destruction

A pale-skinned woman with fleshy love handles pressed a sheet of cardboard against her naked chest.  Her sign read PHOTOS OF TITS FOR $.  A short, pudgy lady entirely painted in glittery silver waddled past me as I stared.  She wore only a pair of panties; two Saints’ logos covered her nipples. Leaning out of a doorway nearby, a thinly clad black woman wore undergarments that accentuated her toned muscles and barely-hidden lady-parts.  You didn’t need a resume to find work on Bourbon Street.  

If you couldn’t get hired by a professional to sell your body, then you could expose your skills right there on the street and earn pocket change or sweaty, crumbled-up dollar bills.  The pedestrians who strolled down these sidewalks were likely to pay to satisfy their baser, bodily urges.  The famous street in New Orleans’ French Quarter is the perfect market for bizarre commodities.  

If there is a supply, no matter how vulgar, there must be a demand for it.  I saw a disheveled, dorky-looking homeless man who held up a sign that read:  “For $5 you can kick me in the ass.  For $10 you can kick me in the balls.  This is no joke.  I’m that desperate.”  I wondered how many sadistic customers support this shameful business.  I find that many people don’t have the gall to meet a homeless man’s gaze, so what kind of person would kick a man while he’s already so down on his luck?  I was both fascinated and ashamed of the man’s desperation, but I wandered about my role as a tourist in a deviant, sex-infested, morally-corrupt side of town.

When I travel, I search for views pleasing to the eye and meals that satisfy my taste buds.  I search for the places that distinguishes the city from other spots in the world.  This is a very common goal among vacationers.  We find a beautiful beach with soft sand or a cozy ski-lodge with easy access to smooth, downhill rides.  But there, too, is a perverse side of travel in which the wanderer seeks strange places stained with dark histories.

I’ve been to the battlefields of Gettysburg and a penitentiary in Philadelphia that housed Al Capone.  I visited the former on a field trip to learn more about the fight to preserve the union and to appreciate the dead whose blood stained the soil over a century ago.  But the grass I saw was green, not red, and the earth, although it may contain the skeletons of soldiers, swallowed the evidence of war. 

The prison, too, was a relic of the past.  It was decommissioned in 1970, and soon nature threatened to overtake the facility.  The wild grasses in the exercise field were cut, but the paint on the barred doors is chipped and the metal is rusted. Even though the stories inside those cells are relatively young, the layout of the prison, although a break-through at first, is mostly outdated.  This is a window into the past with a distant view of rapists, murderers, and famous gangsters, but their lack of immediacy only stirs my imagination and reminds me of black-and-white crime pictures from the Warner Brothers’ golden age. 

There is something that happens to a story when all the players are gone and the buildings grow decrepit from lack of use.  Such important events become lodged inside books in the form of bold words that grade-conscientious students highlight for answers to possible test questions.  With each successive generation, both the details and the emotions fade.  Upon discovering the horrors of the Holocaust, I was horrified, but not as much as those who witnessed the concentration camps firsthand in the 1940s. 

I remember being shocked on the morning of September 11^th while watching the Twin Towers smoking on television, and I will always remember where I was when I heard the news, as many Americans will.  Twenty years from now, 9/11 will be a history lesson studied by kids who weren’t alive during the terrorist attack.  They couldn’t possibly understand the vulnerability one felt and the slight tinge of fear when one boarded a plane for the first time after all those jets were hijacked.  There are certain moments that need to be lived to be truly understood.  The aftermath of disasters can provide insight, but time dilutes the effects.

I have never visited Ground Zero, but while I was in New Orleans I wanted see the evidence of another deadly story of my country’s past.  I wanted to see the Lower Ninth Ward where Hurricane Katrina inflicted the most damage.  At the hostel where I stayed, I met three German women and a man from Singapore, and I asked them if they wanted to see the neighborhood wrecked by the hurricane.  They all agreed, and we took a bus to the Lower Ninth Ward. 

As the facilitator of this unplanned detour, my friends followed me as though I knew what I was doing.  When we got off the bus, I wasn’t sure what to look for, or even in which direction to head.  I had recently led us to a Park Service walking tour that was cancelled, so I didn’t want to disappoint them again with an uneventful outing.  I felt a perverse desire to show them memorable destruction.  I yearned to see damaged houses and to discover stories full of death, racism, and a lack of justice by the U.S. government and President George W. Bush.  I was slightly troubled by this urge, but, after all, wasn’t this partly why I wanted to visit New Orleans? 

The sidewalks were uneven, and there were sections completely overgrown with high grasses, but that was the worst you could say about the neighborhood so far.  It seemed like any other low-income area.  I scrutinized roofs for damage and pointed desperately at sheds with crooked frames.  There was a shelter that looked like a gas station with its guts ripped out.  Underneath the awning, scraps of wood were strewn about, and I could only guess what the place was once used for. 

After we crossed a busy road, we were the only ones walking through the streets.  There were no stores or cafes nearby.  Aside from the traffic behind us, the place seemed deserted until we passed a black man cutting his grass.  Upon seeing us, he cut the engine on the mower and opened the gate to his fence and greeted us with enthusiastic fist-bumps.  In a very welcoming manner he asked if he could help us find something. 

Since I was the one who initiated the plan, I decided to be the spokesman of our little group, but I wasn’t sure how to word my request.  I didn’t want to say, “We’re searching for homes that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.”  This man lived here, and there’s a good chance he was around when the neighborhood flooded in 2005.  I didn’t want to treat a personal tragedy like a tourist attraction.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to say anything.

“Are you all searching for the Brad Pitt homes?” he asked. 

Having recently read that Brad Pitt donated money to rebuild the neighborhood, I indicated that this was precisely what we were looking for.  I had no alternative plan, and this was the best lead I could find.  The man didn’t ask us why we were here.  He gave us directions, wished us a pleasant day, and returned to his yard work.

We followed the man’s instructions and turned into the right neighborhood when we passed a white man in the bed of a large truck designed to haul construction equipment.  As we passed him, he asked us in a southern drawl what we were doing here.  I explained that we were looking for the Brad Pitt houses. 

He pointed toward a colorful house raised above the ground and said, “They’re the goofy-looking ones.” 

I thanked him, and we carried on until he ushered us back. 

“Wait a minute,” he said.  “I was talking to you.  I want to know what you’re doing here.”

I trekked back to the man alongside Ian, who is originally from Singapore but is studying in Chicago.  We stood behind the truck as the man sat down on the bed and dangled his legs toward the ground.  The three German women halted roughly ten meters behind us. 

“Tell the girls to come over here,” he said.  He heard them conversing with each other in German.  “They speak good English?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I said, then told the girls to come over while silently trying to reassure them that no harm would come out of this.  When we entered the low-income neighborhood, I told them I was showing them the real and impoverished part of America that few foreigners see.  I’ve heard a few Europeans admit that when they came to America, they worried about being shot.  With this in mind, I tried to convey to the Germans that, yes, this man is probably undressing you with his eyes and he’s hoping that this trivial encounter will somehow lead to the bedroom but as long as the sun is still out nothing will happen.

When the Germans neared the man, he asked them all their names and what they thought of New Orleans and America in general.  The Germans said they liked them both and didn’t delve into specifics.  After the man finished questioning the Germans, I asked him what he was doing here.  He was leveling out a plot of land.  He encouraged us to return in a half hour to see the finished project and so we could talk some more.  Before we parted, he told us to be careful, and we vowed to avoid this particular route when we returned to the bus stop. 

The Brad Pitt houses are brightly colored boxes on stilts.  The structures are simple and symmetrical but massive and highly functional.  If another hurricane strikes the area again, these houses won’t float away.  Instead, the water will run underneath them.  You could even park an SUV under the house to keep it out of the rain. 

As we perused the neighborhood, a black man from across the street sat behind a table covered in T-shirts with Brad Pitt on them.  He ushered me over from across the street and asked us where we were from.  He was trying to create an open and friendly environment for visitors to learn about the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the efforts to rebuild the area.  During relief efforts, the neighborhood, largely consisting of African-Americans, developed a distrust for white people visiting.  Although this attitude wasn’t helpful, I began to understand their disdain.    

When I was in junior high, I remember listening to Jay-Z’s song “Minority Report” in which the rapper criticized George W. Bush’s slow response and accused the president of hating black people.  I had seen photographs of black families stranded on rooftops, and I heard that the Superdome was used to house locals who couldn’t evacuate the city.  In other words, only the poor were left behind.  The evidence was eye-opening and racially-charged, but there were many shadowy details de-emphasized or ignored. 

The man selling the Brad Pitt shirts pointed me toward a museum of remembrance where I read an account of someone who sought refuge in the Superdome.  Inside, the refugees roasted in the heat and spent nights in complete darkness.  They went to the bathroom all the over the place.  Dead bodies were not removed.  I once thought it was an incredible gesture that the city transformed a football stadium into a safety shelter, but I changed my opinion after learning the horrid conditions that news agencies weren’t able to show.

As the flood raged on outside, people waded through the murky water searching for food in damaged convenience stores.  A picture of a white couple was accompanied by a description of the two finding food.  A black man had the same idea, but his actions were labeled as looting. 

The police forces were given permission to shoot looters, and several black people were killed for breaking laws that should be abolished during the chaos of deadly disasters.  If my house floated away and I swam through seawater where I usually walked, I would take a loaf of bread in an abandoned gas station, and I wouldn’t think to leave the money on the counter.  What use is money or laws when everything you know is floating away?

I read survivors’ accounts of watching relatives fall into the water and drown, and they were left to grieve on a rooftop slowly sinking beneath the encroaching ocean.  The levees weren’t built properly.  Relief was slow.  White cops gunned down blacks in the name of the law they were clearly breaking.  To local authorities, this natural disaster seemed a convenient way to flush out the unwanted black neighborhood, so it was no wonder that some blacks didn’t want privileged whites poking around in their neighborhood. 

Contrary to the rumors that the area was unsafe, all the blacks I met were very welcoming and friendly, but the whites I encountered were skeptical of my presence and made me feel as though I were in danger.  As my friends and I walked back to the bus stop, a white guy driving a pick-up stopped next to us and rolled down his window. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked. 

The truck driver helped me realize why I was searching for destruction.  I was nowhere near Katrina when it struck the southern United States, and my home has never been damaged by storms.  Aside from one caved-in roof and high grasses sprouting through the cracks in the sidewalk, I saw little evidence that this area was ever ravaged by both flooding and injustice.  

The people still bore the scars, but even those were fading with each plot of land leveled and every new house constructed.  We don’t visit sites like the Lower Ninth Ward or Ground Zero or Auschwitz to reimagine the horrors that occurred there.  We visit these places to pay witness to a resilient people who have seen death on a massive scale but found a way to keep on living.          

Confederate Moonshine

On a bus from Mobile to New Orleans, I scanned the remaining open seats.  I spotted an Australian guy with whom I spoke on an earlier train and moved toward him but the man in front of me beat me to it.  I learned quickly that when an opening pops up, I must seize it immediately.  There is no time for manners on a Greyhound where comfort is concerned.  Having two seats to yourself is an extremely enviable position worth a hard fight.  Sitting next to someone with a pleasant odor is akin to a silver medal when selecting a seat-buddy. 

Slightly crestfallen, I scoped out the scant leftovers and hoped for an attractive and single woman eager to hear my life story.  At this point, I would settle for a docile man who is likely to make little noise.  I realized my chances were slim and accepted my slim picking.  A chubby black man sucking on the meat of a chicken leg offered the spot next to him.  I could hear his lips vacuuming the tiny tendons and inhaling them off the bone.  I plopped down in the seat. 

As he spoke quickly and mumbled with an Atlanta accent, I had trouble understanding him.  He was once a boxer who never got a shot at a big gig.  After taking too many blows to the head and the body, he quit and started drinking, for both business and pleasure. 

He’s an independent contractor who sells beer at football games and concerts, mostly in the South and the Midwest.  He was heading to New Orleans to attend a meeting at the Superdome where the Saints play football.  He frequently traveled back and forth to Texas to Georgia and up north to Ohio.  There’s good money to be made in his business, he said, but he works a lot, even though he dictates when he works. 

His job keeps him from seeing the woman he first referred to as his baby mama.  Later in our conversation, he confirmed that this woman is his wife, who was recovering from a severe illness in the hospital.  I thought it unwise to inquire about his wife’s maladies.  I did not know the man’s name, but he seemed very distressed.

“I hope she don’t croak,” he said, “But what can you do but keep working and supporting the family?”

Although the subject matter was gloomy, this is what I loved about sitting next to strangers, especially the revealing ones.  This man was unveiling incredibly personal information as though I were a priest onboard this Greyhound confessional.  He obviously felt the need to get this information off his chest.  I don’t think he needed anybody to listen and give him advice; he just needed to console himself by talking.  What better way to accomplish this than to unburden your thoughts to a complete stranger who is unlikely to go around circulating the news?

I didn’t press him about his wife, but I did inquire about his drinking problem.  I realized the topic is sensitive, but this man had already divulged so much personal information that I thought he wouldn’t mind if I asked him.  My family has a history of alcoholism and because of that I don’t drink, but I am always curious to see what drives a man to abuse the booze.  This objective opportunity allowed me to learn about his motivations without getting tangled in sympathy or nepotism.

Then he told me about moonshine, a highly illegal substance brewed in the backwoods of the American South.  Having recently moved to Florida, I wanted to develop a better understanding of life in the southern United States.  Despite my upbringing in the north, I am familiar with rednecks, and country music introduced me to themes such as southern hospitality and the desolate landscapes that most people fly over.  I’ve grown accustomed to the aggressive-driving, Obama-hating, slightly-racist populace, but moonshine remains an enigma worthy of folklore.  Florida Georgia Line mention the drink in some of their songs, but they don’t discuss specifics.

When I asked the man on the bus where one acquires moonshine, he said way out in Georgia country, but he was laughing, too.  He must’ve believed I was trying to score this outlawed drink, and he couldn’t picture an innocent white boy from Pittsburgh poking around in the Appalachian hills searching for back-country brewers.  I wasn’t asking for directions to his dealer; I was just curious, although if offered to see the headquarters I would not pass down a guided tour. 

I mentioned a show I saw on the Discovery Channel where mountain men brewed the concoction using bananas, and I asked him how they make moonshine. 

“That’s just for TV,” he said.  “It’s not the real process.”

The media would not show the general public how to make the real stuff because it is illegal.  You could spend five years in prison for possession of white lightning.

With a trunk full of hooch, the man was driving home from the boonies when a cop pulled him over.  A bottle had smashed in his trunk and a hundred dollars’ worth of moonshine spilled.  The police officer found the illegal booze and offered to let the man go, on one condition:  he give the moonshine to the cop, not for confiscation but for personal consumption. 

The man beside me on the bus laughed and said, “I’ll throw in a couple of dollars for you if you want, I said to him.  Just so long as he didn’t take me to jail, I didn’t care.”

His story reminded me of bootlegger's tales of peddling booze and speeding away down country lanes to avoid the police during the Prohibition.  I could imagine a weed dealer making an exchange with a customer, but buying moonshine out in the sticks still seemed a foreign concept to me.  I imagined a family of moonshine makers who passed down their trade and their hand-me-down overalls from generation to generation. 

The fact that moonshine was still being made consoled me.  I liked the idea that certain sections of the United States didn't change much.  The ruggedness of our modernized country is steadily being compartmentalized into shopping districts and cookie-cutter neighborhoods connected by non-descript highways.  It's nice to know you can still drive into areas without cell-phone reception where you can buy illegal substances from hillbillies.         

The Greyhound Asylum

Recently, I was riding a train through Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia when I spotted a dopey-looking fat man with a shiny bald head and an oversized black T-shirt that read I LOVE TRAINS.  When the train pulled into the station and stopped briefly, he marveled at the blue hunk of steel.  When the train chugged away, the man turned around and walked away.  I couldn’t fathom why any sensible person would take time out of their day to salivate over a vessel designed for mass transport on a fixed set of lines.  Then I rode the bus.

I wanted to take the train from Florida to Louisiana, but Hurricane Katrina destroyed the railroad tracks from Jacksonville to New Orleans.  Nine years later, they still haven’t been fixed, so I was forced to ride a Greyhound. 

My journey began in Tampa, Florida inside a harshly illuminated bus terminal.  I sat upon a wire-metal chair that threatened to buckle under my 180-pound frame.  I attempted to read my Kindle but was too distracted by the quirky characters around me.  Just outside the glass doors, there was a thin, haggard man dressed nicely in dirty clothing.  He held a water bottle to his ear like a telephone and spoke emphatically through the plastic as though communicating to the hydrogen oxide molecules.

A bearded man opened the door and chomped on a banana.  In between bites, he babbled incoherently and then retreated to his exterior sanctuary. 

A few chairs away from me, a fat man muttered to himself while lugging three bulky bags around the station.  He would bicker something unintelligible, pick up his luggage, and relocate to a space three chairs away.  He repeated this process several times during my hour-long wait. 

The Greyhound website advised me to be at the station an hour before my departure time.  Apparently, what they mean by this is that if you don’t heed this advice, you would miss the show performed by the local lunatics.

Who are these people talking to? I wondered.  I checked all their ears for headphones or Bluetooth extensions, but I found none.  I wanted to give these people a fair trial before I deemed them insane. 

After a trip to the restroom, where I found splattered urine all over the toilet seats, I realized I was not at a bus station but in an asylum waiting to be rescued.  

I scrubbed my hands and emerged from the bathroom assuredly infected with some invisible disease.  Then I took a seat next to a harmless-looking woman. 

I attempted to read a few more pages of my book when the woman next to me blasted the volume on her smart phone.  She decided that everyone in the bus station wanted to hear her exercise video.  While the thumb-sized man on her screen shouted ways to tone your thighs to the beat of the music, I exchanged looks with a man across from me who was roughly my age.  Without using words, our eyes spoke volumes.  In that instant, we verified each other’s sanity, and we realized that our mothers did a magnificent job raising us to be courteous and civilized people.

Finally, the bus swooped in to save me until it abandoned me in another terminal in Orlando.  During my lay-over, I snacked on trail-mix and read a few chapters while sitting on another questionable bench.  I was making great progress through the book when another man with discourteous habits and zero self-awareness perched upon a divider that was not meant to be sat upon.  He was wearing vibrant orange cargo shorts that sagged underneath his boxer-covered backside, but I actually admired his overall ensemble because his baseball cap matched his shorts and his shoes.  He, too, played loud music and sang foul lyrics to an older woman I assumed was his mother. 

“I hit you with a left,” he rapped, “I hit you with a right.  And beat the pussy up.”

He continued this refrain and laughed each time he completed his verse.  I respected his tireless endurance but eventually grew annoyed with his boisterous antics.  Midnight was approaching, and a few travelers curled up on the benches to catch some shut-eye while waiting for the bus.  Paying no mind to those around him, the man repeatedly implored his mother to watch his performance.  Although he must’ve been in his late 20s, he still sought his mother’s attention like an impatient, whining infant. 

Miraculously, the man left the station by his mother’s side, and it was during that glorious moment of quiet that nearly convinced me of the plausibility of divine intervention.  After yet another inexplicable bout of behavior, a burly white man next to me made eye contact with me.  His forearms were thick with muscle, and his boots looked worn-out. 

“Are you going to be around here for a few minutes?” he asked me, but I understood what he really wanted to say.

“I’ll guard your stuff,” I said with as much authority as I could muster.  He laughed because I saw right through his question.  I rarely find myself wielding such powerful, unspoken truths during strained moments. I relished the opportunity to sound tough and deliver quotable dialogue. 

As the man walked to the restroom, I wondered: Why did he ask me? Do I look trustworthy?  Or did he trust me because I’m white, and there were a lot of black people around?  Did he think we could form an immediate bond due to a common skin pigmentation?  That must mean he assumes the inclination to steal is directly related to the melanin levels and the epidermis’ exposure to ultraviolet radiation.  I harbored no racist thoughts.  In the bus terminals, I distrusted everybody equally.

In order to avoid another episode, I stepped outside and began walking laps around the station to help me stay awake.  Before I reached the end of the parking lot, a cabbie approached me and asked me if I needed a ride.  I told him I was waiting for a bus and I was wandering around just to kill time.

“You don’t want to walk around here,” he said with a Caribbean accent.  “It is the ghetto, you know what I mean? You can get robbed.”

I thanked him for the advice and reluctantly went back inside to bide my time on the uncomfortable, cushion-less chairs.  There is only one restaurant in the Orlando bus station that offers sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, fries, yogurt, apples wrapped in plastic, juices and sports drinks.  If you don’t like what’s on the menu, you could brave the ghetto and walk for miles to find a McDonald’s, or you could peruse the vending machines. Like a jumpy squirrel on the lookout for predators, I nibbled on my honey-roasted peanuts with shifty eyes.

The buses are only slightly more welcoming than the terminals.  There’s a slight, but persistent tang of urine wafting in the air-conditioned atmosphere that you never completely adjust to.  I didn’t manage to snag a window-seat, so I spent an endless night attempting in vain to find a comfortable vertical position in which to sleep.  My spine throbbed when I slouched and stretched out my legs.  With perfect posture, I didn’t feel relaxed enough for rapid eye movement.  Eventually I gave up on sleep, and that’s when I smelled marijuana burning. 

Immediately after detecting the stench of weed, I heard a man coughing violently.  Later, I saw this same man fall asleep with his head suspended upside down in the aisle.  When we disembarked in Tallahassee, he caused a scene as the passengers lined up near the bus to collect their luggage.  This man had a military build and stubble that promised to sprout into a thick beard if allowed enough time.  If he orchestrated his facial muscles one way, he looked like a man you could immediately respect because of his confident stature.  But the man composed himself with the dignity of a high-school bully. 

He accused a woman of stealing his salad while he slept and threatened to call the cops on the bus driver.  His evidence was that the woman was sitting across the aisle from him, and that his salad was missing.  He had left it on the floor under him, and when he woke up it was gone.  He held the woman accountable due to her proximity, and he blamed the bus driver for allowing such a crime to happen on his watch. 

As I listened to his testimony, I began to realize why everyone around me was acting so crazy.  Stranded from civilization, we had entered dangerous terrain where missing salads not only warrant questions but full-scale investigations.  I vowed never to travel by bus again.  The next time I needed to cover a lot of ground I would fly over these lunatics as they bickered over heavily-dressed lettuce. 

If I ever set foot inside a bus again, I feared what would happen to me.  My brain would deteriorate causing me to misplace my snacks, but I would have a plan.  After punching a few buttons on my mobile device, I’d speak to my imaginary lawyer through a plastic bottle of Gatorade.

Traveling with the Opposite Sex, Part II

After filling ourselves up on quality hoagies, my friend and I cut through Love Park.  My friend took a picture of the LOVE sculpture as a family of strangers posed before it and the fountain behind them.  After we passed the sculpture, she said, “I feel like we should’ve gotten our picture in front of that.  I feel like it’s the thing to do in Philadelphia.” 

As a general rule, I don’t like taking pictures of myself because I prefer not to draw attention to myself.  Something about my reproduced image unnerves me as though there is a dormant vanity in the photograph that would come alive and infect the real me.  Maybe I subconsciously think that I’m ugly, or maybe I subconsciously think that I’m attractive but wish not to appear boastful.  Sometimes I tell my friends I’m better looking in motion, but, if you freeze a particular frame of my life, chances are it might not turn out well. 

My friend stood still by the fountain as I slowed my pace but continued walking nonetheless.  I didn’t say anything of merit to her wish to get her picture taken.  I mumbled a response that was borderline sarcastic but mostly hesitant: a drawn-out “yeahhhh.”  I was trying to avoid a direct confrontation.  If she asked me if we could get our picture taken in front of the sculpture, I would’ve said yes just to be polite, even though I had no interest.  But I figured if I kept on walking, she’d follow me and dispel her desire after we walked too far away to turn back.  That was precisely what happened.

“I am more interested in pictures with people in them,” my friend said. 

“I prefer to photograph empty spaces,” I responded. 

I argued that the Selfie Revolution was borne out of arrogant, forceful desires for the photographer to be remembered after death.  No matter how insignificant or mundane our lives are, we can all be minor celebrities on Facebook.  True, artists have been painting self-portraits for centuries.  Some of them may have been vain megalomaniacs, but some probably didn’t have a model and they wanted to practice illustrating certain facial features.  But I don’t think most of the modern partakers in the Selfie revolution are concerned with capturing the textures of the human visage.  

The image quality of the subject and the background are not inherently important, but the relationship between them is.  All that matters is that this face is front of this landmark as proof that a certain person inhabited a certain spot on the Earth for a brief moment in time.  

Ultimately, those who excessively indulge in the practice of taking Selfies do not take pictures for themselves, but for others to validate the relevance of their lives.  By posting pictures of oneself in front of the Eiffel Tower, one is shouting, “Look! I was here!  And here!  And here!” 

A Selfie every now and then is not toxic especially if the composition and the framing is creative.  And they are useful for parents who nervously ship their daughter off to Europe but are reassured when they see frozen frames of her vacation.  For myself, I would rather understand and appreciate the natural beauty of physical space rather than planting myself and my indulgent smile in front of it and thereby blocking the view.  I fully understand the need to preserve one’s youthful image and to capture memories before they fade from the mind’s eye, but I am firmly against the haughty practice of photographing oneself excessively.

My friend’s views were not as extreme, but she did believe that many people took Selfies to make ex-boyfriends jealous to prove they were getting along better without them.  She pulled up some pictures of a mutual friend sipping wine with her cohorts and posing together while wearing outfits designed to induce horniness in men.  As I consider myself a relatively humble human-being, I would not see fit to advertise myself in this fashion, but these women were trying to make a statement like colorful birds do when they flaunt their plumage to attract mates.

We were strolling alongside the Benjamin Franklin Parkway when we reached the Basilica of St. Peter and Paul.  Upon entering, my friend gravitated toward the confession box.  Much to my surprise, she opened the door and commented on how dark it was inside.  She opened the slate and whispered through it, “Tell me your sins.” 

Unfortunately, I did not have a comedic retort because I was flabbergasted by my friend’s boldness in poking fun of this ritual.  I nearly cringed when she opened the door because I half-expected to find a priest inside.  At the same time, I leaned into the uncomfortable nature of the moment because I knew if I were by myself that door would never have been opened.  A giddy thrill coursed through me, and I was reminded me of my rebellious childhood adventures when I would break rules simply because my friends were doing it. When culpability is spread throughout the group, the individual faces a divvied-up sense of shame.  If I were to cause mischief by myself, however, my embarrassment and guilt would be more potent.  Conversely,  enjoyment can double when one has company. It goes without saying that if you make a joke, someone has to be there to laugh at it.  For these reasons, I feel I can take more risks when traveling with a companion.  The rewards often feel greater, but happiness is more difficult to maintain when you must consider the comforts of others.  Battles are always a possibility.

After repenting for our sins, we made our way to the Rocky Steps.  Somehow, my friend managed to live a quarter-century without having seen Rocky, but she was familiar with the fictional character and the training sequence.  Many tourists were running up the stairs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and pumping their fists in the air.  There were even hawkers selling bottled water and Gatorade next to the steps, yelling, “Ice-cold water here!  Ice cold water!” Usually these shrewd, yet leech-like businessmen bother me, but I was amazed to see how much a fictional scene in a movie made in the 1970s could imbue meaning onto these otherwise un-noteworthy staircases.  The underdog boxer captured the imagination of enough people to create a popular attraction where dehydrated runners could quench their thirst with second-hand products.  

Jogging up these stairs seems silly, especially when you consider that most people have grown accustomed to riding the elevator or standing still on escalators, yet devout fans make the pilgrimage to the shrine where they pay homage to their hero.  Despite its ridiculous nature, the fact that many visitors climb the Rocky Steps is an incredible feat of the human race.  We’ve evolved a long way from worshiping Mother Nature to gods to imaginary characters.

My friend decided to make a video of climbing the stairs, and she wished to post it on Instagram immediately after we finished.  We found a bench along a walking path next to the museum.  As I consulted my city map, my friend was busy on her phone.  I discovered the road where we needed to turn and stood up, ready to press onward.  We planned to visit Eastern State Penitentiary, the world’s first true reformative prison.  The time was nearing 3:30 P.M., and the prison closed at five.  I had no interest in dilly-dallying, but my friend was still uploading the video on the bench.  I knew she could be irritable after walking long distances under a hot sun, and I had no desire to repeat the mistake I made in New York.  I proceeded with caution, as though I had inadvertently found myself between a mother bear and her cubs.  All I wanted was to escape this unscathed.    

“We should go,” I said gingerly.

“I’m not finished,” she said, not looking up.  

I reminded her of the current time and the impending deadline to visit the prison.  I stood there wordlessly and what I hoped to be somewhat firmly, but not so firm as to be imposing or aggressive.  She reluctantly gave in, and we started walking again.  

“Did you finish whatever you were trying to do?” I asked to be polite.  I hoped that my question would evaporate the tension between us.  I could feel my heart thudding the way it had before running track events in high school.  That type of nervousness arose because I knew I was about to expend a lot of energy in a very short burst.  One minute I'm comfortable, and then the next I'm drained.  As an easy-going pacifist, I am generally too apathetic to waste energy on trivial fights, but I could feel an argument surfacing.     

“No,” she said, with a hint of bitterness.  “I didn’t have enough time.”

I decided it was not a good idea to say anything.  I especially considered it unwise to impress upon her my interpretation of her near-hissy-fit, but the urge to express my frustration leaked out.  I rarely get angry and sparingly get annoyed, but there are certain principles I stubbornly defend.  I attempted to delicately inquire why she felt the need to post the video right away.

"I'm sure your friends would be OK if they learned about your day at a later time," I began.  "They don't have to know what you're doing right this minute.  The story will be just as fresh to them in a few hours."

To avoid sounding unconcerned, I told her that I could relate to her desire to post the video right away.  There are certain tasks that I feel impelled to finish in a timely fashion simply because I have developed stubborn habits.  Once my mind wraps around a particular task, I find it difficult to drop the matter, unfinished, before moving on to another task.  The unfinished project would nag at me while I was occupied with something else, and I wouldn't be able to devote my full concentration.  

I was worried that my friend would be angry with me for rushing her personal project because I wanted to see the prison right now.  But I hoped that I managed to express the right amount of empathy and the right amount of logic so that we could reach a compromise.  We would visit the prison while it is open, and she could tinker with the video afterwards because there was no deadline for that.    

An argument in this situation could be sour enough to linger throughout the evening.  The last thing I wanted to do was dampen this vacation over a petty disagreement.  Sulking, I find, is never conducive to having fun, so I avoid it on principle. Instead of pretending nothing happened, I told her jokingly that we nearly repeated the episode that took place on the Brooklyn Bridge.  

Almost-fights are like car accidents that nearly happened.  Collisions require two neglectful drivers.  Even if one driver is paying attention, he can swerve out of the way.  In the same way, two friends can avoid arguments if they communicate freely and respond to each others' signals.  If you can't share the road, maybe you're better off traveling alone.           

Traveling with the Opposite Sex, Part I

I had lived in Pennsylvania for twenty-three years and never set foot in Philadelphia, but I know people from Australia who have.  This didn’t make much sense to me, so I booked a few nights in a hostel and bought a train ticket.  Usually I travel by myself, but this time a female friend accompanied me to the City of Brotherly Love. 

Prior to this trip, my friend and I took a bus to New York City to see the sites and walk the various neighborhoods.  The Big Apple was more inviting this time around, but we made a few mistakes this time.  First off, we booked a hotel room.  It was the cheapest rate we could find, but for the price of two nights there we could’ve stayed in a hostel for a week.  Secondly, we embarked on the trip during a particularly frigid stretch in November.  Temperatures hovered around twenty degrees Fahrenheit.  Despite wearing jeans, two pairs of socks, a few shirts, and a winter coat, the bitter winds coursed through my meager clothing.  I was naïve about traveling cheaply, and I had no way to predict the extreme weather since I booked the trip very far ahead.  However, my biggest mistake could’ve been avoided. 

After strolling around Manhattan for the day, my friend wanted to go out to a bar in Brooklyn.  As I was in charge of the directions, I led us to the subway.  We boarded a train that headed toward Brooklyn, and I decided on a whim to get off by the bridge.  I was obsessively seeking a particular vantage point from the film poster of Manhattan.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sit on a bench as they look at out at a bridge and the skyline.  Since Manhattan is one of my favorite movies, I wanted to recreate that image.  If that was all I did in New York City, I would be completely satisfied with the trip.  At the time, I didn’t know which bridge was in the poster.  My thinking was that if I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, I could scope out the area to see if the scenery matched.  Besides, it was the Brooklyn Bridge after all.  This piece of architecture is a tourist destination, so I thought it’d be cool to traverse it at night, but I forgot a crucial detail.  My friend was wearing high heels.

 

She had warned me that she didn’t want to walk far, even though I had warned her not to wear uncomfortable shoes that would cause her pain.  This is where our interpretations of the incident diverged. 

My Viewpoint:  I didn’t understand why anyone would knowingly and willingly wear shoes that would most likely result in irritation of the skin.  I wear shoes for two reasons: to protect my feet from broken glass and to provide comfort when I walk.  I had warned my friend that walking in New York City on a paltry budget would be inevitable, and, thus, high heels would not be suitable.  When the pain ensued, I was not surprised.  If I were in her shoes, I would’ve blamed myself.  I would have accepted my sacrifice for comfort in exchange for sleeker calves.   As a last resort, I would’ve risked pricking my soles against a used needle, and I would have crossed the bridge in my bare feet. 

Her Viewpoint:  He knew I didn’t want to walk far in these heels, but he didn’t listen.  He took us across the biggest bridge he could find, and now my feet hurt and it’s all his fault.  He apologized and said he didn’t realize the bridge was this long, but the whole evening is ruined now.  I wanted to go out and have a good time, but we always do what he wants to do.  He’s so selfish.  Now I’m upset, and I’m going to let him know how upset I am by ignoring him completely and charging up this bridge in my heels, despite the pain I feel every step of the way. 

We eventually put the high-heel-Brooklyn-Bridge fiasco behind us, but I vowed not to repeat a similar situation in Philadelphia.  To get off on the right foot, I packed two peanut butter and raspberry preserve sandwiches, one for me and one for my friend.  I even offered to eat the sandwich made of the butts of the loaf, but she politely volunteered to accept the runt of the litter.  For snacks during the trip, I bought two boxes of granola bars:  coconut and peanut butter.  Usually I would buy dark chocolate instead of peanut butter, but I made my first compromise in the grocery store.  I had to train myself to think about others before myself. 

Once we reached the 30^th Street Station, we set our course toward the hostel in the historic side of town.  The trip was a straight shot, but according to Google Maps the walk would take about forty-five minutes.  My friend was more than willing to walk so we could see more of the city.  And she was wearing comfortable walking shoes. 

During the eight-hour train ride, we had many stimulating conversations of both high and low brow tastes in spite of our mild fatigue.  We tried to ascertain the allure of train culture while observing passengers hesitate near the handicapped restroom as they stood frozen in a mini moral dilemma.  Pottering down the city sidewalks, we carried on together.  She enumerated her activities during her previous spree in Philadelphia a year ago when she drove here with her mother.  I listened for potential ideas on this trip while I tried not to make a comment about every stimulus in the environment. 

My friend and I are comfortable sitting in silence together, but sometimes I have the urge to fill the air with my voice.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to remark upon something I witness.  Usually these exclamations have not stewed in my conscious long enough to be fully mature and well-researched.  Usually I avoid stating the obvious.  I rarely say things like, “It sure is hot out today,” while my companion and I are sweating while strolling down the sidewalk.  However, if I were to observe a man with a large tattoo on his Adam’s apple and surrounding neck area, I would certainly make a comment about him as soon as he was out of earshot.  I would say something like, “Usually when I see someone with a neck tattoo like that, I dismiss them.  How can you expect to get a job looking like that?”  These remarks are often shallow and judgmental, but sometimes they lead to a thorough discussion on the increasing acceptance of tattooed people in the professional sphere.

During my jaunts through the United Kingdom, I usually organized the filing cabinets in my mind while I walked the streets alone.  As I weaved my way through foreign labyrinths, I would try to discover a theme that unified my observations and synchronized with my emotional attachment to the city.  I was so immersed in the new environment that I felt completely unattached to my life at home.  Nobody knew my history, so I could be anybody I wanted to be.  To a city full of strangers, I had no past.  I could’ve invented a new personality if I wanted to, but my old one stuck and certain reticent characteristics remained.  If I saw a pub packed with people, I wouldn’t eat there.  I’d walk a little out of the way to find a quieter place to dine alone.  Although I usually pay no mind to societal pressures, I experienced a mild discomfort upon entering crowded establishments.  I wondered if other people would make comments about me, but then I realized they probably wouldn’t even pay attention to me.  Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter because I don’t know them.  Nonetheless, I was never in the mood to sidle up next to strangers in a bar and be the guy who read his book in such a social atmosphere.  By myself, I felt I could walk long distances without burden, but there were certain doors I wouldn’t open.

When traveling with my friend, however, these anxieties were non-existent.  My companion and our dialogue proved I was not alone.  I blended into the crowd of social animals.  We entered the bustling Reading Terminal Market during the lunch rush.

 

The place was so crowded we constantly avoided collisions as we craned our necks and read the myriad shop signs as we scoped out our options.  We ordered Italian roast pork sandwiches at Dinic’s and waited in a long line that wrapped around the counter in an L-shape.  

My friend was ahead of me in the line.  When it was her time to pay for her meal, she dug through her purse as the cashier stated the total.  As she plucked a few dollar bills from her purse, I wielded my credit card in my hand and noticed the man behind me held a twenty dollar bill in his hand.  During a previous experience, I told my friend that women often hold up lines because when they get to the register they act surprised that they have to fork over cash.  Men, on the other hand, usually tally up the total, account for the tax, and gather the necessary funds while they stand in line.  I read this in a book by Bill Bryson, and I’ve experienced this phenomenon several times to know there is some merit to his findings.  

“I asked my friends at work if they get their money together at the register or while they stand in line,” my friend said, while she waited to receive her change.

“And what did they say?” I asked.

“They get their money ready at the register.”

“Are they females?”

“Yes.”  

“Well, there you go,” I said.  “This place would be perfect for an experiment.  Check out the guy behind me.  See?  He’s got his cash ready, and it’s not even his turn to pay.”

After getting our food, we wandered around for a few minutes, searching for two adjacent, vacant spots.  We had to wait until someone else got up, and, when this happened, we immediately seized the empty chairs.  I bit into a hot pepper, and we proceeded to eat in relative silence, which is ironic because sometimes the silence bothered me when I ate alone because eating out is largely a social event.  Perhaps the words themselves are not as comforting as the convenient opportunity to engage in a conversation.  Although I wasn’t exercising my option to converse with a friend, at least I had the option.

The Socially-Engineered Utopia

I was on the metro in D.C. taking the green line as far north as the train would go.  I was heading for an oddity of a city called Greenbelt, Maryland.  I first learned of the town in the tiny bookshop next to the Franklin Roosevelt monument.  There were signs on the wall that described the major tenets of his long presidency.  One sign in particular offered the specifics of the New Deal, the country’s recovery plan in response to the Great Depression.  As part of this reform, Roosevelt planned to build three new green cities from scratch.  One of them was Greenbelt. 

The federal government, with the guiding hand of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, plotted the town on a lot that used to be a tobacco farm a few miles outside the nation’s capital.  The town was designed to be autonomous, prosperous, and safe.  Roads were laid down.  Then pathways were built to go under the roadways, so that children wouldn’t have to cross the street to get to school.  All of the major buildings, the nearby houses, and the park were connected by pedestrian-only pathways that cut through forested green space.

The goal of this experiment was to socially engineer a self-sufficient community that would provide affordable housing and provide jobs.  Aspiring occupants had to apply for residence.  Only those genuinely enthusiastic about communal activities were accepted.  This was not a city for hermits or disgruntled neighbors that stood watch on their porch, shotgun in hand, ready to fend off trespassers who dared to step on the grass.  At first, only whites were allowed to live in the community, even though many African-Americans constructed the buildings.  Greenbelt did not accept other races until the ‘60s.      

Aside from this blatant racism, Greenbelt was engineered to be neighborly.  The architects initially provided the townsfolk with all the necessities for sustaining a healthy community.  There were schools for children as well as educational programs for adults.  There was a church, a public library, a grocery store, a movie theater, a swimming pool, and outdoor spaces to exercise.  The social engineers fostered a sense of progress into the Greenbelt citizens.  Not only were they were encouraged to be both mentally and physically fit, they were first and foremost instilled with a sense of camaraderie with their neighbors.

When Greenbelt Consumer Services decided to sell the original grocery store and pharmacy, the citizens organized and decided to buy them to keep the businesses within the community.  Before the entire city was completed, a caring resident wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt asking for aid to complete recreational facilities.  The First Lady talked to her husband, and Mr. President granted Greenbelt the funds to complete their utopia.

With all this presidential planning, I assumed Greenbelt and its unique story would be well-known in the D.C. area.  But that is not the case.  After disembarking from the metro, I hopped on a bus that would take me into the historic town.  I asked the driver if his route went next to the Greenbelt Museum and the New Deal Café.  There was even a blip on Google Maps that indicated the position of this eatery named after FDR’s economic recovery program.

“There’s a museum up there?” the bus driver asked. He never heard of the café either.  “What street is that on?”

I consulted my GPS.  “Crescent,” I replied. 

After confirming this street intersected his route, I took my seat and wondered how this man was ignorant to the history of the very city he drives through every day.  He didn’t even know there was a museum there that detailed Greenbelt’s story.  Once I got to the museum, I realized why.  The museum looks like it could be somebody’s house, and it probably is for six days a week.  It is only open for four hours on Sunday. 

I walked along the pathways that ducked under the road near the school.  As I trod on the pathways that I had previously read about, I noted the odd sensation of having been here before.  The feeling was similar to watching a movie based on a book I’ve read previously.  Like a faithful adaptation, the scene before my eyes matched with the image I conceived in my mind.

I continued on the path to the community center, the former elementary school.  Inside, there were two women gossiping in a positive way about the recent activities of the townsfolk.  I didn’t linger long enough to get a grip on their conversation, but based on their tones they were not bickering or criticizing.  The ladies smiled at me as I passed them.  

I was going to ask them a question, but I was not prepared with a specific agenda.  The first question to come to mind was, “What is this place?” but that seemed so incredibly vague and stupid that I was likely to walk out of there embarrassed at my elementary reporting skills.  Initially I was hesitant to enter the building at all because I thought I wouldn’t be allowed, or I’d be forced to invent a reason for my trespassing.

I just wanted to wander around the place and learn about the community.  I knew I wanted to write a piece about Greenbelt, so my desire to accumulate enough knowledge motivated me to step through the doors.  I thought to myself, if I really want to be a writer, or break into journalism, I should start asking people questions to get the scoop.  I considered the tactics of various travel writers.  Bill Bryson usually potters about and describes what he sees as though he’s a fly on the wall.  Others, like Paul Theroux, get directly involved with the locals.  I enjoy writing dialogue when the situation calls for a natural exchange, but, without a professional assignment, an interview seemed silly to me, so I smiled at the ladies and entered a room filled with poster-boards that detailed the history of Greenbelt by each decade from the 1930s to the present day.  There was even a small TV in the corner of the room that was placed there so visitors could watch a VHS tape of the 1939 documentary The City, which I’m sure would reiterate the info found on the poster-boards. 

After conducting my research, I passed the ladies once more who were then engaged in idle conversation with a bald man.  I’m not sure what job these ladies were performing.  Perhaps they were the town heralds who spread the local scuttlebutt, or maybe they were Secret Service guards responsible for protecting the nuclear warheads stashed under the gymnasium.  If I should ever return to Greenbelt, I will know which question to ask: “So what exactly do you do here?”

I exited the community center and headed toward the main attractions.  A retro movie theater was closed for renovation.  

To make up for this delay, the theater was screening free movies in the park once a week.  Even the business owners are friendly and not driven by greed. 

The co-op supermarket was still in business.  I snapped a photo of it, and a man wearing a green apron on his smoke break gave me a quizzical look.

I just wanted to solidify its existence, because, prior to this trip, the grocery store had only been printed words.  Everything seemed so perfect in this town I had to question how a place like this could exist.  For a second, I considered that this friendliness was a façade that concealed a dark secret.  The townspeople were really cannibals who lure in unsuspecting victims to save money on groceries.  Although Greenbelt would provide a great location for an episode of The Walking Dead, I dismissed these thoughts that tainted my view of Greenbelt.     

 

Apparently it was open mic night at the New Deal Café.  A couple emerged from the café contemplating the morality of leaving during someone’s act.  The woman was worried the singer would assume they were leaving to escape his voice.  The man reassured her.  The singer probably thinks they’re dipping out for a quick smoke break and that their exit is totally unrelated to his musical talents or lack thereof.  On the other side of the café, three middle-aged ladies and a man with a gray ponytail discussed life’s treasures over cups of coffee.  I actually have no idea what they were talking about, but they all seemed so comfortable in each other’s company.  The sense of togetherness seemed breathe-able as though camaraderie were a gas that was pumped into the atmosphere.

Each citizen seems to care a great deal for the general welfare of the town.  Everyone I passed said hello to me.  I even witnessed a pedestrian smile and wave to the Korean man who ran the local mini mart.  During my first visit to New York City, I bought a magnet at a souvenir shop, and I was shocked that the cashier didn’t say a word to me.  During a gondola ride in Venice, the gondolier didn’t even acknowledge me.  Instead, he spoke in Italian to his fellow gondoliers, who were probably complaining about their wives.  When you see people going out of their way to be friendly with mini-mart cashiers, you know you’re in a welcoming town.  In the movies, these guys always have a shotgun under the register, but I doubt I’d find one in the Greenbelt mini-mart.  These people probably never killed each other.  A zero percent murder rate is the pinnacle of neighborliness.          

While I was inside the community center, I found a written note under the heading “Share a Greenbelt Memory.”  This person wrote, “Growing up in Greenbelt taught me my most important life lessons:  how to live cooperatively with my friends, family, and co-workers.” As I contemplated that note and the entire history of Greenbelt, I observed the group of friends sitting together outside the New Deal Cafe during this lazy evening.  I thought of the hostellers back in D.C. who avoided eye contact with each other, who preferred their phones over company.  There was none of that here.  The social engineers of Greenbelt were successful in their experiment. Nearly eighty years after the town was planned, this cooperative utopia continues to thrive.